Dr. Michael D. Pierschbacher, CEO, ALSP, announced that Dr. Stephen Jacobsen, Ph.D., joined the ALSP Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Pierschbacher said “We are honored thatSteve has joined our team. His international stellar reputation for innovation in Alzheimer’s disease drug development and his in-depth understanding of the pharmaceutical industry will help accelerate our program to the clinic.” Read More...

Dr. Michael D. Pierschbacher, CEO, ALSP, announced that Dr. Bernice Wells, MD, MBA, joined the ALSP Board of Directors. Dr. Pierschbacher said “Bernice is truly an exceptional individual as she has extensive venture capital experience, pharmaceutical industry experience and is a physician. Her business and technical insight will help insure ALSP succeeds.” Read More...

The National Institute on Aging’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Summit was held in Bethesda, MD, at which Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released the ambitious national plan to fight Alzheimer’s disease called the National Alzheimer’s Project (NAPA), which set forth five goals, including the development of an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease by 2025. The meeting called for public comment on how to achieve those goals. Dr. Greg Hook, VP Alzheimer’s Research, and Dr. Vivian Hook, Professor, UCSD and ALSP Scientific Advisor Chair, attended and participated in the meeting and provided recommendations to NAPA. Read More...

April 21 - 25, 2012:

Dr. Greg Hook of ALSP Inc. and his colleagues Dr. Vivian Hook of UCSD and Dr. Mark Kindy of the Medical University of South Carolina, presented at THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MOLECULAR BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY in San Diego, CA. Read More…

To read more about previous ALSP Inc. news and events, please click here.

April, 2017:ALSP announced that it has had the great good fortune to have Steve Jacobsen, Ph.D. accept the position of CEO and take a seat on its Board. Steve has been advising the Company for a number of years and became available when he left his position as Senior Project Director of Neuroscience iMed at AstraZeneca. Steve brings with him many years' experience in drug development for neurodegeneration and a world class reputation in the space, and we are proud to welcome him onboard. Dr. Pierschbacher will remain with the Company and is very much looking forward to working with Steve in his new leadership capacity.

June, 2016:Vivian Hook, Ph.D., UCSD, and Gregory Hook, Ph.D., ALSP Inc., will present scientific papers at the National Neurotrauma Society Meeting, June 26-29, 2016, in Lexington, Kentucky, and at the Gordon Research Conference on Neurobiology of Brain Disorders, August 7-12, 2016, in Girona, Spain.

April 6, 2016:ALSP, Inc. announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued a Notice of Allowance for claims directed to a group of ALP-496-related compounds, which ALSP had earlier licensed from Columbia University. Michael Pierschbacher, Ph.D, CEO, stated, "This issuance significantly increases the depth of our patent-approved pipeline of potential drug candidates." Read More...

February 10, 2016: ALSP Inc. announced that it has appointed Col.(Retired) Dallas C. Hack, MD as Consultant for Medical Affairs in preparation for its move into clinical trials with its lead drug. Michael Pierschbacher, PhD, CEO, stated, "We are pleased to welcome Dallas Hack onto the ALSP team. We look forward to working with an individual of such practical knowledge and far-reaching experience in Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). We look forward to drawing deeply on his broad experience and success as a clinician and researcher in this area as we enter into our next stage of growth, clinical development." Read More...

January 25 - 27, 2016: ALSP Inc. presented its recent research findings at the Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Vivian Hook, Ph.D., UCSD, presented "Cathepsin B is a Validated Drug Target for Traumatic Brain Injury" during a session entitled "From Precision Medicine to Therapies (TBI)". Gregory Hook, PhD, ALSP, presented the poster "E64d, a Cysteine Protease Inhibitor, Provides a Viable Translational Opportunity for Development of Therapeutics for TBI", reviewing small molecule cysteine protease inhibitors shown to be effective in a number of TBI-related animal models and describing the selection of a lead clinical candidate. Read More...

September 15, 2015: ALSP Inc. is pleased to announce that it has entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), Silver Spring, MD, to conduct traumatic brain injury (TBI) research on the Company's primary therapeutic target, cathepsin B, and the use of the Company's compounds to effect TBI outcomes in animal models.Read More...

September 2, 2015: ALSP Inc. announced the publication of the article "Cathepsin B is a new Drug target for traumatic Brain Injury Therapeutics: Evidence for E64d as a promising lead Drug candidate" by Gregory Hook, J.Steven Jacobsen, Kenneth Grabstein, Mark Kindy and Vivian Hook. Read more about the promising treatmenthere, and the publication is available here...

June 29, 2015: The poster entitled "Brain cathepsin B is elevated following trauma in both mild-closed and severe-penetrating traumatic brain injury models", was presented at the National Society of Neurotrauma, Santa Fe, NM, by researchers at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, MD, and co-authored by Drs. Greg Hook, VP ALSP Research, and Vivian Hook, Professor, UCSD, and ALSP Scientific Advisor Chair Read More...

February 2, 2015: ALSP Inc. announced today that it has signed a license agreement with Columbia University to develop a series of proprietary compounds that are related to its lead clinical drug candidate, ALP-496, in the field of neurodegenerative disease Read More...

ALSP Inc. is a privately held company based in San Diego, California, developing small molecule drugs for treating neurodegenerative diseases, initially focused on traumatic brain injury (TBI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Our approach is to identify key enzymes in the brain, called neuroproteases, which produce biologically active peptides that are thought to cause the condition. Those enzymes become targets for screening compounds that inhibit the neuroproteases and thereby reduce production of the harmful peptides.

Since Drs. Katz, von Euler and Axelrod were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1970 for their discoveries concerning the humoral transmitters in the nerve terminals and the mechanism for their storage, release and inactivation, the process of studying neurotransmitters and the enzymes that produce them have flourished. By using this well-established process, we have identified a family of drugs that is highly effective at reversing the symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases, such as traumatic brain injury (TBI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) in animal models of these conditions. We are advancing our lead compound into clinical trials and continuing our search for additional drugs to treat traumatic brain injury (TBI) as well as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other devastating neurodegenerative diseases.